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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897517">Defining a Skywalker</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang'>idrilhadhafang</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Intersections [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, M/M, Missing Scene, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Novelization, Will Have To Read The Preceding Stories For This To Make Sense, of sorts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:15:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,815</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Palpatine has returned from the dead. While Kylo Ren schemes against him, Poe Dameron and the rest of the Resistance plan on stopping Palpatine: even if it comes at a terrible price. </p><p>OR</p><p>A novelization of sorts of The Rise of Skywalker, complete with fleshing out missing scenes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Intersections [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bad Day Collection</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Message</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: I own nothing. </p><p>Author’s Notes: I might be writing semi-out of order here. Sorry.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had to go. Not only to root out potential threats to his power (of course) but also because he had something to protect, and that was Poe. </p><p>Palpatine — now that Palpatine had risen in the galaxy, once again (though Kylo didn’t know how he could inexplicably come back from being thrown down a reactor shaft and then blown up. Any mere mortal would be killed by that. Of course, with Emperor Palpatine, it no doubt seemed like nothing), he would most likely not stop until the galaxy was under his command. All of it. </p><p>And he would destroy Poe. Kylo just knew it. Poe occupied a space in his heart where no one else could possibly live, and Palpatine...he would annihilate Poe. Not merely kill him. Annihilate him.</p><p>So he had to go. Had to leave. Even ordering the First Order officers to prepare his ship, he found that the idea of Poe Dameron being all but annihilated was scarcely worth thinking about. </p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Poe, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>This may be the last time you ever see me. I thought I’d tell you that much. Somehow Palpatine’s returned — somehow. I have heard of Sith using the Force to preserve their consciousness after death, Sith such as Ajunta Pall and Darth Nihilus, but this still seems all but inconceivable. I have to face him. He will annihilate you if I don’t — like Alderaan, like so many other things he demolished. <br/></em>
</p><p>
  <em>I love you, Poe. I thought I would at least tell you that much, before I go. You are everything to me. And never doubt what you have done. All your decisions, all your steps, have led you to this point.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I am the Supreme Leader in leadership, but in my heart...I am your servant. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>-K.R. <br/></em>
</p><p>
  <em>***<br/></em>
</p><p>It was as vulnerable as Kylo Ren would ever allow himself to be, if he was to be completely, utterly honest. He couldn’t say he was good with emotions. He couldn’t say that he had been good with them for, honestly, quite some time. He could say that he had been blocked, repressed — he just couldn’t say how much Poe meant to him. Not really. Not truly. </p><p>It was the truth. The truth of Kylo Ren, and Kylo wasn’t about to go without Poe knowing it. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Mustafar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kylo faces down the guards to get the Wayfinder.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Disclaimer: I own nothing.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mustafar. Kylo didn’t think that he would actually go there, if he was to be perfectly honest with himself. The place where the human form of Darth Vader died — where the iconic man in a suit emerged. </p><p>Where he became the man that the galaxy feared. Kylo knew that he would never be that man, no matter how he wanted to be. Too much softness shining through. Too much gentleness that he couldn’t quite cut out, as much as he wanted to. </p><p>Too much. </p><p>He wondered if he would have to be essentially baptized in Mustafar’s lava in order to become stronger. He could already picture it: the smell of burning flesh, the agony. But it would mean that he was stronger. Without limits. </p><p>No matter how he wanted Vader to show him the power of the darkness, no answer came. </p><p>He’d have to do it himself, essentially. </p><p>Kylo looked down at his datapad in that moment. A new message from Poe. </p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Ben, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You can’t just do this. You can’t just go off against Palpatine on your own. You don’t have to do it alone. That’s your problem, isn’t it; you think you have to do everything alone. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>-Poe</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Poe, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In the end, everyone’s on their own. I know I am. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>-K.R. </em>
</p><p>***</p><p>Kylo gritted his teeth. Damn Poe. Damn Poe for trying, once again, to try and save him from himself. Like he could somehow keep the monsters away just with his love alone. Sometimes, Kylo thought, he had to take on his monsters himself. He had to do everything himself. Everything. </p><p>Another buzz on his datapad. Poe’s message. </p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Ben, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’re not alone. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>-Poe</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>For a moment, Kylo could believe it. Just for a moment. That he wasn’t alone. That Poe was there, loving and believing in him, and that would be enough. But this was Palpatine. A man who was a beast in human skin, a man with a lizard’s face.</p><p>Still, he had to give Poe his own comfort, at bare minimum. </p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Poe, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Neither are you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>-K.R. </em>
</p><p>***</p><p>It was ironic, Kylo thought, saying the same things to Poe that Rey had once said to him. But it was true. Poe seemed to be surrounded by people and still incredibly lonely. And Kylo...stars willing, Kylo didn’t want him to be. Even the idea of him being sad...</p><p>He couldn’t picture it. Even if he already had made Poe unhappy. </p><p>***</p><p>Mustafar. Even doing research on the layout of the planet, Kylo learned that, somehow, it had healed from being a lava ravaged landscape to a beautiful, if eerie-looking, red forest place. And that was where the Wayfinder to get to Exegol was. A Wayfinder wasn’t really a holocron despite the superficial resemblance, but it was more like a compass to Exegol. A place in the Unknown Regions that the Sith didn’t want just anyone to find, but they were willing to leave clues out for the curious. The worthy, no doubt. The Sith had multiple worlds — Korriban, renamed Moraband later on no doubt by the foolish, Malachor V — but Exegol was the place they wanted to most keep secret. </p><p>Not for long, Kylo thought. Not if he could help it. He would see how cocky Palpatine was when the might of the First Order was holding him by the throat. </p><p>***</p><p>Kylo Ren’s TIE Whisper glided smoothly to the surface of the planet. Even as Kylo Ren got out, he could already look around and admire the eerie crimson beauty of the forest. Well, at least before the inhabitants, the guards of this place, pointed their weapons at his throat. </p><p>Well, at least they were getting to the point. Kylo spoke. “You can’t possibly be stupid enough to think you can take me on.”</p><p>”I think that would be all too easy,” one of the guards said. “Skywalker beat you on Crait.”</p><p>The other Mustafarians laughed. Kylo could already feel the humiliation, the rage, boiling in him, so much like Snoke’s rebuke.</p><p>— “<em>Alas, you’re no Vader. You’re just a child in a mask...</em>” —</p><p>Kylo ignited his lightsaber, let the blade almost sing as he twirled it behind him. "Skywalker was a coward and he died like one,” he said. “I do advise that you hand over the Wayfinder before I mount your heads on the walls of the Steadfast.”</p><p>”I think we’d be more concerned about you throwing a tantrum,” said one of the guards. </p><p>Needless to say, the guards learned the error of their ways soon enough. Too late, Kylo thought. It should have been satisfying, of course. Of course. But now it made Kylo wonder if he would ever truly belong anywhere, those taunts. They were not to be taken seriously. That was obvious. But Kylo was all too reminded that he really didn’t belong on either side. </p><p>It didn’t matter. He’d prove it. </p><p>He stepped forward, all but plucking the Wayfinder off the dais, and looking over it — looking over the black triangle and listening to the eerie hisses of ancient Sith. Snoke had been extensive in his educating Kylo on multiple languages. Sith, for example. </p><p>It was perfect. Now, all he had to do was actually get to Exegol. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Megalomaniac</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kylo meets with Palpatine.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Disclaimer: I own nothing.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Even as Kylo Ren steered his TIE Whisper through the crimson web that was the route to Exegol, and later emerged, he could not help but be awed by the sight of the dark blue, stormy skies — the random flashes of white lightning. It didn’t seem like somewhere that would be practical to live, but then again, the Sith wouldn’t really pick a beach planet, would they? Or an environment like Ithor? They’d pick something dark, chaotic, mirroring who they were inside. </p><p>Mirrors of their passion. </p><p>Kylo ignited his lightsaber and stalked into the stronghold of Exegol.</p><p>***</p><p>The turbolift...platform (for lack of a better word) was hexagonal. Kylo didn’t know why, if he was to be perfectly honest. It seemed almost impractical; if you were going to head down to the ground floor, you’d want a circle, at least. Even descending into the darkness, he couldn’t help but think he had stepped into hell. </p><p>“At last.” That voice, sounding like stone scraping against stone. Palpatine? Kylo had heard snippets of him, before he had fallen. He had brushed it off as, simply, him hearing things. </p><p>The lightning flashed, illuminating statues of Sith past. Apparently there was lightning inside too? Kylo had never seen an environment that had lightning inside it.</p><p>Had the Sith thought of practicality or dramatics when designing this place?</p><p>”Snoke,” said Palpatine, “Trained you well.”</p><p>”I killed Snoke,” Kylo said. “I’ll kill you.”</p><p>“My boy. I made Snoke.”</p><p>— “<em>I</em> <em>was not born Snoke; I became Snoke.” —</em></p><p>Kylo froze then, just realizing that. Snoke had alluded to his origins, hadn’t he, from the very start?</p><p>Palpatine continued. “I have been every voice,” his voice shifted to mimic Snoke’s, “you have ever heard,” his voice shifted to mimic Vader’s, “Inside your head.”</p><p>The first thing that Kylo felt when Vader’s heavy breathing died away was a sort of betrayed emptiness. He thought, impulsively, of praying to Vader to watch over Poe. Had that just been based on a lie?</p><p>Had every prayer to Vader to give him strength been for nothing?</p><p>And as Kylo noticed the glowing tubes with replicas of Snoke in each one, he realized that Snoke, too, had just been a part of Palpatine’s plan. </p><p>Controlled. From day one, he had been controlled, and for what, exactly? The revenge of a spiteful old man?</p><p>Once again in Kylo’s chest, the kicked cur began to rouse.</p><p>”The First Order was just the beginning,” Palpatine said. “I can give you so much more.”</p><p>”You’ll die first.” Force willing Kylo wanted to kill him. To make him bleed. </p><p>“I have died before. The Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities some would consider to be unnatural...”</p><p>And Kylo saw. A decrepit replica of the Emperor, but a replica all the same. Images came to him — that blue flash of light in the reactor shaft of the Second Death Star had been energy transference. A sign that something was wrong. But Luke and Vader had been too exhausted to see it — Vader was injured and Luke still recovering from Force Lightning. An extended period of it, at that. Snoke was at least more merciful than Palpatine in the sense that his Force Lightning shocks weren’t long, drawn out sessions of pain. Not that it made it better. </p><p>More images. The body being rotted from the inside out. The agony that came with it.</p><p>It would be easy to kill him again — but he’d come back. There was some way he would. He’d have to take the crafty route, just to save Poe. </p><p>“What could you give me?" Kylo said. </p><p>“Everything,” Palpatine said. </p><p>His hands, lifting. Outside, the cracking of ice, something — multiple things — breaking through. </p><p>“The might of the Final Order will soon be ready,” Palpatine said. “It will be yours if you do as I ask. Kill the girl! End the Jedi, and become what your grandfather, Vader, could not.”</p><p>Kylo lowered his lightsaber. Best to play along. A good thing that Palpatine couldn’t read his thoughts — Kylo had his shields up. </p><p>“You will rule the galaxy as the new Emperor,” Palpatine said. “But beware. She is not who you think she is.”</p><p>”Who is she?”</p><p>”Why, my granddaughter.”</p><p>Kylo’s eyes narrowed. “I never heard of the Emperor having children to begin with."</p><p>"I did,” said the Emperor. “A clone. A weak, sniveling thing...much like you.” A beat. “You’re more a Sith hopeful on Korriban of old stealing others’ lunch credits than an actual Sith. This, however...this will change that. The girl’s humiliated and outsmarted you. Skywalker chose her, a Palpatine, over his own flesh and blood. Doesn’t that upset you?”</p><p>”It does.” </p><p>But even so...killing one’s own granddaughter? Wasn’t there some sort of line there? The idea that Palpatine could kill his granddaughter with no remorse...</p><p>Then again, Palpatine was a sociopath. No limits, no restrictions, nothing that was beneath him. Even...that. </p><p>“You killed your father,” Palpatine said. “Indirectly killed your uncle. I’m certain that killing my granddaughter will be all too easy. Killing is like breathing for you, boy. You’re cruel, violent, megalomaniacal — the ideal traits in an apprentice. They just need refinement.”</p><p>***</p><p>Kylo shouldn’t have felt so soiled by Palpatine’s words as he headed back to the TIE Silencer, having agreed to this. Agreed, of all things. Palpatine was wrong about him, though, wasn’t he? Everything Kylo did was for the best. Wasn’t it?</p><p>He messaged Poe before getting in his TIE Whisper. Before heading back from Exegol. </p><p>
  <em>Poe, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Don’t worry; I have a plan. <br/></em>
</p><p>
  <em>-K.R. </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. In Motion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Poe makes it back to Ajan Kloss.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Disclaimer: I own nothing.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The main hold of the Falcon. Poe was at least trying to focus on playing dejarik with Finn and Chewie. The dejarik sets...it didn’t help that they reminded him of happier times in the Falcon. Ben and him, playing dejarik together, and that triumphant smirk that Ben got whenever he beat Poe. </p><p>It was, in that moment, like the memory of them both was everywhere. </p><p>Kylo had said that he had a plan. Said. It was enough to make Poe wonder — and worry for him. How, exactly, did you try and outsmart Palpatine? You didn’t just play a dejarik player (funny, that dejarik was the closest metaphor that Poe could come up with), you didn’t just con a conman. </p><p>It didn’t work that way. </p><p>Maybe that underlying anxiety was why he was shorter with Chewie than usual. “Are you ever gonna go?”</p><p>”He can’t beat us every time,” Finn said. </p><p>“Apparently he does,” Poe said. He would have said that Chewie definitely did, but he didn’t want to reveal too much to Finn. How much he knew Ben. It felt like a secret that he had to keep close to his chest — a secret that felt too personal, too intimate. </p><p>“How does he do it?” Finn said. </p><p>“This guy here?” Poe said. “It’s because he cheats.” At Chewie’s indignant growl, Poe protested, “Kidding!”</p><p>“Oh, come on,” Finn said to Chewie. “Take your turn.”</p><p>“You’re two hundred and fifty years old.” Poe said. </p><p>“You’re taking forever,” Finn said. “That’s cheating.”</p><p>”Of course you’re better than this.” Poe said. </p><p>Finn piped up. “That’s why we think you’re cheating.”</p><p>***</p><p>Their dejarik game was cut off. Of course it was. The TIE fighters that came after them, that...monstrous whatever it was that Poe had to fire shots into the mouth of...by the time Poe reached Ajan Kloss, the Falcon was in bad shape. Of course Rey yelled at him for it. Never happy, that one. Even though they were running for their lives, and Rey was just happily meditating on Ajan Kloss, nice and cozy, like nothing was wrong.</p><p>Even as Poe sat in his room far before the debriefing, he noticed that he had one message from Kylo. </p><p>
  <em>Poe, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Are you all right?!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-K.R. </em>
</p><p>It dawned on Poe that very few in the Resistance seemed to care what happened to him. But Kylo did. How messed up was it that Kylo seemed to be the only one who really cared about what happened to Poe?</p><p>Poe typed back. </p><p>
  <em>Ben, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m all right as I can be. I’m gonna need to find a way to tell them. I really am. I mean...they’re going to be angry. I know they are. Angry and scared. Because it means that everything their parents fought for was for nothing, if Palpatine was ready all this time. And we have to stop him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I can’t tell them you have a plan either. They’d call me a traitor — and they wouldn’t be wrong. <br/></em>
</p><p>
  <em>-Poe</em>
</p><p>
  <em>***<br/></em>
</p><p>Poe was looking over the spy’s message then. It seemed to be written in the Arkanis symbols...their spy had to be from Arkanis. And considering that there seemed to be only one in the First Order who was from Arkanis...</p><p>General Hux. Poe almost wanted to laugh at that theory. What were the odds? Was he trying to make up for what he had done? Had he had a change of heart? Was he just out for revenge against Kylo? Who knew, actually?</p><p>It was good to have an ally in the First Order, but Hux’s motives...who the hell knew?</p><p>Palpatine had returned. He was on Exegol. He was attacking the free worlds in sixteen hours. </p><p>How exactly was Kylo supposed to have a plan for that?</p><p>***</p><p>
  <em>Poe, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It won’t be for nothing. Not if I can help it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-K.R. </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
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